


Difference

by Sylv



Category: Teen Titans (Animated Series)
Genre: Friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-03
Updated: 2012-12-03
Packaged: 2017-11-20 04:55:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/581515
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sylv/pseuds/Sylv
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes Robin's an idiot. It doesn't happen often, but when it does, it is spectacular.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Difference

Raven sat on the ledge of the tower, gently kicking her feet back and forth in a surprisingly childish gesture. Her large, violet eyes followed the speck in the sky that was Starfire, looping and zooming back and forth with almost too much energy to bear watching. The empath let her lips turn up in a smile as she watched her friend let off some steam. The two of them had been talking about nothing memorable on the roof when Raven had noticed that the alien seemed edgy and more fidgety than usual. With a small grin, she had sent Starfire off the ground, telling her that she would wait until she was done to continue their conversation.

There was a slam behind her as the door to the roof shut, and footsteps as the person walked closer. Raven didn't turn around; she had known who it was before the door shut the whole way, and her smile grew minutely. When he sat beside her, she turned slightly to face him, but made sure to still keep her gaze upon her zealous friend in the sky. Robin gave Raven a smile in return and swung his legs over the edge of the roof, so that he was sitting next to her. The two of them observed Starfire as she swooped through the sky, occasionally letting out a whoop of joy that she couldn't contain.

The chuckle escaped Robin's mouth. "She really has a lot of energy, doesn't she?" he asked, not really expecting an answer from his friend.

Raven's amethyst eyes danced and she nodded her head in agreement.

A slight frown marred her leader's peaceful expression as he contemplated something. "Star does this a lot, doesn't she?" Another rhetorical question. Raven sent a questioning glance at him sideways, wondering what he could be getting. "She needs to fly like that to let off some energy, or something, right?" Without waiting for confirmation from the empath he turned to face her, a sincere query in his words. "Rae, why don't you ever fly like that?"

The reaction from the girl was  _not_ what he was expecting  _at all_. Robin had been thinking that she would roll her eyes at him, or give him a small smile and one of her extremely logical explanations (personally, he considered most of them excuses), or perhaps she wouldn't even answer him. All of those he had been prepared for, and would have known how to react if they had happened. However, Raven shocked him again.

It was almost explosive, the way she acted, compared to the emotion that she normally let show on her face. A thundercloud appeared over her expression as she turned completely to face him. " _I. Do. Not. Fly._ " The words came hissing out through her clenched teeth, and flames roared behind her purple eyes. Robin stared at her, torn between cowering at the tone of her words and laughing at what exactly it was that she had said.

"W-what?" was what he was intelligently able to come up with.

Raven stood sharply, pulling her hood up to cover her face and glaring down at him. "Did I stutter?"

Finally gathering his wits about him, the masked boy stood up as well, needing the tiny height advantage that he had over his empathic teammate and crossed his arms. His face plainly showed that he was confused, though. "What do you mean you can't fly? You fly all the time! You fly to battle, you fly around the tower. You fly!"

"If you are assuming to correct me about what I can and can't do, Boy Blunder, you have another thing coming. I would thank you to remember that I know the capacity of my abilities, and  _flying_  is not a skill that I possess!" Her growl was morphing into a snarl, and Robin was sure that if she didn't have more control now that Trigon was gone he would have found himself at the bottom of Jump City Bay right about now.

Robin, now thoroughly exasperated, threw his hands up in the air to tell her that he was utterly lost. "I don't know what you're talking about!" he snapped at her.

Raven let her head hang for a moment, violet hair framing her face and breathing deeply until she was sure that she wouldn't reach out and strangle her leader. Once this urge was swallowed the heroine looked back up. "Let's see if I can put this into words that you will understand," she informed him flatly, with no emotion at all, which showed just how furious she actually was. "Starfire flies. Tamaranians fly. I, however, cannot fly. I levitate. Our powers allow us to do these things, we do not make the choice." Her arms crossed defiantly at her chest while Robin scratched his head, trying to wrap his mind around the information that he had apparently been expected to know.

"But… they both look the same…"

The empath cut him off. "Have you ever noticed that when Starfire is in midair, she bobs up and down? This is because the ability to  _fly_ is meant to be in motion, and _levitation_ is meant to be held still. When it comes to Starfire, she is most natural when she is flying to a destination, or simply moving in the air, as she is now." Raven gestured vaguely to the sky, where Robin noticed in the back of his mind that the alien was coming closer. "And I am at my most natural when keeping still in the air, like this." She demonstrated by lifting herself off of the rooftop a few inches and hanging there, still glaring daggers at him.

Robin realized that his mouth was slightly open, and he closed it with a snap. "Can't I just call them both flying?"

"No you can't!" Raven landed on her feet again with a thud.

"I don't understand what the problem is! Why are you so upset about this? All I did was ask you why you never fly like Starfire does!"

Something seemed to be sucked out of Raven as he said this, and she refused to meet his eyes. The girl seemed to be retreating into herself, and Robin had a feeling that he had stumbled upon something that he was never supposed to know; one of Raven's 'baring her soul for him to see' moments. He couldn't help it; he winced. He wanted to avoid more of those if he could help it, because the last time something like that had happened, Raven was meant to end the world.

Robin didn't like invading her thoughts either. Raven was a very private girl, and pushing her so far that you forced her to open up like this was not something that friends did. He watched her struggle with herself for a minute with a sinking feeling in his stomach. An internal battle was waging within him as well; he wanted to slap a hand over his friend's mouth, shake his head, cover his ears, tell her to shut up, anything so long as he wouldn't hear what she was about to tell him. Another part of him wanted to lean forwards eagerly, make sure that he didn't miss a word, ask Raven more probing questions, and satisfy his rising curiosity about just what was so strong to make Raven hate him mixing up levitating and flying.

This situation left his heart going in two directions and was causing a tugging pain in his chest. He clenched his fists, the raging debate in his head seeming to get nowhere. This was Raven, his friend Raven, and if he really was a good person he would do anything, even walk away, so that he wouldn't make her reveal this part of her that she obviously didn't want anyone to see. But it seemed like she was going to make the decision for him, for at that moment she took a deep breath and said, "Because."

He stared at her, unable to stop a smirk worming its way onto his face despite the grave thoughts he had been thinking just moments before. "… Because?"

The heroine glared at him, a spark back in her gaze. "I'm not finished. It's because… because I can't stand the thought that I can't fly. Because when Starfire flies, she displays her unbridled happiness for the whole world to see. That happiness that everyone loves in her, the one thing, the  _one thing_ ," Her voice dropped to a whisper, and Robin unconsciously moved in closer, listening. "That I cannot show."

Robin was blown. He was completely out of his depth here. He had come out onto the roof to find Raven and Starfire, and sat down, hoping to maybe have a casual conversation with one of his friends. And what had started as him asking an innocent question had turned into him blundering his way into something that he wasn't sure how to get out of. He couldn't, in good conscience, tell Raven that her fear was stupid, or that she should just get over it, or even just leave the roof without saying anything. But what was there to say? Raven, I'm a kid who has no problems expressing emotions at all, so I have no idea what you're really going through, but I'm sure that I can empathize some way, hey, take my advice about this?

Yeah. Right.

"Raven…"

There must have been something in his voice, because she looked up at him, and once again, her eyes were blazing. The anger was back, and Robin found that he was relieved; it was much easier to deal with than those words of longing and jealousy. "I don't need your pity. Don't give me that. But I also don't need you reminding me that I'm not allowed to show what I'm really feeling, or I might unintentionally blow something up!"

"Friends, what is going on?"

The two birds turned to see Starfire gently touching down with a small frown marring her face. She must have heard them arguing before they had seen that she was there. Robin stared as though he couldn't really believe she was there. What was going on? He didn't really know. Raven had just revealed something to him that he had never even thought about, never considered how much it hurt her for him to be so off-hand about. Once again, however, Raven beat him to the punch.

"Robin here doesn't know the difference between levitating and flying."

To said boy's utter surprise, Starfire's face shadowed to, and she turned to him, yet still addressed Raven. "He does not know the difference?"

"He called with I do 'flying'." That pained straining was in her voice again, he Robin hated to hear it but not as much, apparently, as Starfire did, because her eyes began to glow green.

The alien princess opened and closed her fists repeatedly, but spoke in a very reasonable voice as she gave him some back story. "Do you recall the time when Raven and I switched our bodies?" She didn't wait for confirmation as she continued. "We were required to tell each other everything about ourselves. And Raven revealed to me something that she had not told anyone before; about how she wished dearly that she could fly as I do, since it is a representation of my emotions." Her gaze hardened here, in time with her voice. "Have you upset Raven?"

"Er…" how was he supposed to answer that? He did, but he really did mean to. He hadn't known! But Robin was a boy of sense, and he didn't want to negotiate with an extremely pissed off Tamaranian. When it came to Raven, as he had seen many times previously, the girl didn't tolerate any wrong-doing. Even unintentionally. He began to sweat as she advanced upon him with Raven behind her, and wondered if he could reach the door to the stairs before  _they_ could reach  _him_.


End file.
